Bay Village names new police chief after former chief retires

BAY VILLAGE — When he first joined the Bay Village Police Department in 1985, Mark Spaetzel had one goal. “As a rookie, I wanted to be the detective lieutenant,” he said. Now, the former Det. Lt. Spaetzel is referred to as Chief Spaetzel. Bay Village Mayor Debbie Sutherland on Nov. 1 named Spaetzel the top cop following the June retirement of former chief David Wright. “It's funny, because when I first joined the Bay Village (Police Department), I had no interest in being chief,” he said. “It was only the detective lieutenant position that I wanted.” He said he wanted that job because he had always dreamed of doing detective work and leading other investigators as a lieutenant. Following his start with the Bay Village police in 1985, Spaetzel was promoted to lieutenant in 1999 and has led the detective bureau up until his recent promotion. “I think I was just ready for a new challenge,” Spaetzel said. “I'm probably within seven years of retiring at this point anyway. So, why not take this opportunity to help the department keep moving in the correct direction.” Sutherland chose Spaetzel to beat out two of his fellow lieutenants — Lt. John Kirchner and Lt. Calvin Holliday, who served as interim chief after Wright's departure. “Either of them would have made a fantastic chief,” Spaetzel said. “I think that their excellent work only puts the bar higher for what I need to accomplish as chief.” At this time, Spaetzel said he has two main plans: building a great communication base with the citizens and city administration, and reorganizing the department. “As a department, we have always had fantastic communication with the schools,” Spaetzel said. “I want to help develop that communication and make it so that we have top notch communication with the citizens and the city officials.” As far as reorganizing the department, he said he does not plan to do that through cuts. “I plan more on just changing things around so that officers are better utilized,” he said. “There are certain areas in the structure at this time that is just wasteful of officer's time.” Specifically, Spaetzel plans to get more officers on the road and out in the public. “Not only will it help keep the public safer, but it will also help keep our officers safe,” he said. “At times, we are running bare bones on officers in the field because we have other officers being forced to do administrative stuff at the station.” Officers working dispatch is a bad use of a patrolman's time, Spaetzel said. “The officers could be on the road rather than answering phones,” he said. “It's not the best use of resources. I'm hoping we can get some civilian dispatchers in here to solve that issue.” Spaetzel plans to flatten the structure of the office. Rather than having four lieutenants as has been the case in the past, he hopes to only run with two. “I want to have one lieutenant in an administrative role and the other out in the field,” he said. There will not have to be cuts or demotions made to reach this goal, Spaetzel said. “With my promotion, we only have three lieutenants now,” he said. “We just won't fill my spot. Whenever one of the other lieutenants leaves or retires, we won't fill that spot, leaving only two.” Spaetzel added his plan is to have a sergeant lead the detective bureau rather and a lieutenant. Even with the two short-term goals in mind, Spaetzel said that his one long-term goal will remain the same. “I want to leave this department better than I found it,” he said. “That's going to be very difficult because this is already a fantastic department. Everything I do will be to help make this place better.”

About the Author

Jon is a 2011 graduate of Calvin College in Grand Rapids, Mich. While at Calvin, Jon worked for the college newspaper, Chimes, where he was the sports editor and co-managing editor. Jon began writing for The Morning Journal in March 2013 as a crime reporter before moving to the sports department in December 2013. Reach the author at jbehm@morningjournal.com
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